Developing the Training Plan for the St. Patty's Challenge

Developing the training plan for a lifestyle

Cville Fall Classic 10K 2013

I started running when I was pretty young and think I ran my first 5K when I was 11 years old. I ran track for a year and cross country for part of a season in high school before getting injured. I then ran to stay in shape on and off most of my adult life. As an adult I routinely found myself getting talked into 5Ks which would get me motivated to head out and run a little more. The goal was always to train for the distance to gain that minimal confidence I could finish without walking or worse. Eventually I ran a couple 10 milers and had the same distance focused approach.  After running a race I would generally reflect back on prior times and determine if I was in better or worse shape. If I had recently ran a few races I had an expectation I would be faster and if I hadn't I just hoped I hadn't lost too much ground. I developed expectations for myself without any plan for getting there and in many cases hitting the finish line meant a met the main goal and was done training for a while, maybe years. This was not a prescription for improving or maintaining my health.  

I talk about lifestyle a lot. If your training plan is too focused on a specific event, isn't something you can maintain before and after an event, or is so intense you run the risk of injury, then it is not going to stick and become part of your lifestyle. Training in these ways almost always results in falling off the wagon. 

One of the main purposes of my St. Patty’s Challenge is to aggresively7 document and find things that work for me and can become part of my family's and hopefully others lifestyles.  These things include how we cook, train, eat, etc and they have to be things my family can sustain so we keep up on that wagon. The following are the key things I have studied and considered when developing the my training plan.

What are the training goals?

Before mapping out any training plan the first question must be, “What are your goals?” Your goals can be a variety things.

• Are you trying to reach a distance, number of reps, or weight?

• Are you trying to hit a personal record for a particular race?
• Are you trying to maintain cardio for general health?
• Are you trying to reach your peak fitness level?
• Are you trying to beat your buddy (BIB 130) at the next race who keeps betting you by 30 seconds? (uh this one is all mine)

Your goals should ultimately drive how you train but without some thought and planning your results will not be optimal.  For me at this point my goal is optimal total performance and the last bullet up there on the list.

What is lactate threshold and why should you care?

Nothing that I am going to say here is new or revolutionary but when I learned what my lactate threshold was and got a little education on how to train based on it, several light bulbs all went off all at once.

Lactate threshold is the exercise intensity at which lactic acid starts to accumulate in the blood stream. Prior to reaching this threshold lactic acid levels stay fairly constant due to the body’s ability to metabolize the lactic acid. As exercise intensity increases lactate acid production increases and at some point exceeds the body’s ability to keep up. In many athletes the threshold occurs at a fairly specific level of exercise intensity followed by a very rapid build-up of lactic acid and in others the buildup occurs more slowly over a period of time. As this build-up occurs one’s ability to perform decreases rapidly. The lactate threshold is one of the best predictors of an individual’s performance. Understanding where your threshold is and the rate of increase of lactic acid at different exercise intensities can help you predict your peak performance over different spans of time and help shape an optimal training plan. An individual’s lactate threshold can be increased over time through an increase in training volume and by training above the threshold.

How can your lactate threshold shape your training?

If you are looking to maintain cardio vascular health it will likely be adequate to exercise at or slightly below your lactate threshold with consistent or slightly increasing volume. But that’s not very exciting. If your goal is to increase your distance for a race or personal goal, it will likely be adequate to exercise at or slightly below your lactate threshold with a continuously increasing volume of 10-20%. If you are looking to reach your peak performance, hit a new PR, significantly increase your speed or cardio vascular capacity then you need to incorporate training at levels well above your threshold.

What if I don’t know my lactate threshold?

While you may not know your lactate threshold or want to go through the test there are ways to get a good approximation. The Rate of Perceived Exertion (RPE) scale and a heart rate monitor can be great tools and give you an idea of where you lactate threshold might be. 

Grab an RPE chart like the one on the right and head out for a run. Start off with an easy jog and slowly increase your pace. At regular intervals note your pace, heart rate, and your RPE. It may help to have someone with you to help record the measurements. When training below or at threshold you should be able to exert yourself for a significant period of time without any notable drop in performance and your RPE is likely to be around 11-12.  For high intensity training your RPE should be around 15-16. 

An individuals RPE should fairly consistently map to heart rate. With the measurements you took you can identify target heart rates for both low (11-12 RPE) and high (15-16 RPE) intensity training sessions. You will want to re-run the test every 6 months or so as your RPE, heart rate, and lactate thresholds will change over time.

Slow-Twitch vs. Fast-Twitch

As you exceed your threshold there is a transition from the use of slow-twitch muscles to fast-twitch muscles. Slow-twitch muscles are those used to do slow steady activity where fast-twitch are those used for more explosive activity. According to Dr. Weltman, of the UVA Exercise Physiology Lab, recent studies are indicating that fast-twitch muscle recovery times are around 72 hours while that of fatigued slow-twitch muscles is closer to 48 hours.  Keeping high intensity sessions for a particular muscle group or cardio 72 hours apart is likely to produce optimal recovery and forward momentum.

Increasing Volume

To avoid injury due to over training, increase the volume by no more than 10-20% per week. I have ignored this and spent months with a physical therapist as a result! It's also a good rule of thumb to take a few days off to stretch and roll if anything is not fully recovering.

Fueling, Back-Loading, and Protien

This is a subject of pretty wide debate and this is purely my opinion based on the various information I have and personal experience. Even on a fairly low carb diet like paleo you are most likely receiving plenty of carbs and fats to fuel you through low to mid intensity workouts of less than an hour. For those workouts that are of significant intensity or for duration close to or over an hour fueling and back-loading is a good idea.  Fuel before and during for long endurance activities, and back-load with carbs and protein.

The Training Guidelines Emerge

All of this information along with a desire to meet the lifestyle requirement led me to series of guidelines. This post has a bit of a cardio flavor but these concepts and guidelines can be applied to any type of training. 

1. Training for performance should include two high intensity workouts per week well above the lactate threshold, ideally at an RPE of 16.
2. Training can include as many short to medium volume at or under the lactate threshold as desired.
3. Do not exceed the weekly total volume by more than 10-20% week over week.
4. Endurance training sessions at or below threshold should be placed as far from high intensity sessions as possible.
5. Fuel before high intensity sessions with simple carbs
6. Fuel before and during endurance training sessions with simple carbs
7. Fuel after high intensity and endurance training sessions with simple carbs and protein
8. Have at least one full rest day per week or more if not recovering fully.
9. Training should be easily conducted wherever you find yourself.
10. Training sessions should be brief and focused as to ensure they get done.

With these guidelines I developed two primary plans.

• Performance Focus
• Two high intensity workouts per week
• One endurance training session placed at the furthest point between the high intensity session
• One rest day best after the endurance day
• Two days of low intensity training up to weekly volume limits 

• Maintenance Focus
• Five low intensity workouts per week
• Two rest days

Here is the weekly schedule I came up with.  I will be following the performance plan for the challenge unless I am injured or fatigued and will then follow the maintenance plan.  The performance plan brings together both cardio and resistance training intensities on similar days. One could certainly take these guidelines and apply them per muscle group and cardio allowing for low and high intensity training on a daily basis and effectively allowing one to train much more. I did not do this since I was aiming for something easy to follow both in terms of schedule and duration per day, that whole lifestyle thing.

So here goes nothing, let's see if this plan produces results you can see.

Thanks,

Chuck